Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Megaupload Indictment Shows That Google Does Actively Police Against Its Ads Showing Near Infringement

One small point in the Megaupload indictment is worth calling out for reasons that have little to do with the case at hand. It seems that it's become vogue in Hollywood over the last couple of years to blame Google for everything. You see all sorts of stories claiming that Google is the main cause of "piracy" and conspiracy theories bizarrely claiming that Google was the main force behind stopping SOPA/PIPA because it "profits from piracy." There are tons of stories claiming that Google refuses to pull ads from sites that engage in widespread infringement. But... right there, smack dab in the middle of the Megaupload indictment is the fact that, pretty early on, Google dumped Megaupload because a review of the account found lots of infringing content:

On or about May 17, 2007, a representative from Google AdSense, an Internet advertising company, sent an e-mail to DOTCOM entitled "Google AdSense Account Status." In the e-mail, the representative stated that "[d]uring our most recent review of your site [Megaupload.com,]" Google AdSense specialists found "numerous pages" with links to, among other things, "copyrighted content," and therefore Google AdSense "will no longer be able to work with you."

Note that this in May of 2007... way before the widespread claims by Hollywood folks began saying that Google turned a blind eye to any infringement it found. Seems like this part of the indictment suggests otherwise.